I talk to psychologist Dr Christopher Kavanagh about the phenomenon of secular gurus. We discussed the secularism of latter day gurus, how they differ and compare to traditional cult leaders, what traits it takes to be a secular guru (galaxy br

On Writing with Lars Iyer

Dec 22nd, 2023 1h 2m

Lars Iyer is back! On this episode I talk to novelist Lars Iyer about the fiction, the writing process, the relation between literature and the world, a writers compulsion to write. We speak about a whole range of writers like Plato, Samuel Bec

On Richard Rorty with Chris Voparil

Oct 27th, 2023 1h 1m

On this episode I talk with Chris Voparil from Union Institute & University about American philosopher Richard Rorty. We discuss Rorty’s biography, his complicated relation with American Pragmatist philosophy and both analytic and continental p

On Spiritual Freedom with Martin Hägglund

Jun 10th, 2023 1h 11m

On this episode of the podcast, I talk to Swedish philosopher Prof. Martin Hägglund from Yale University about his book This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free. The dominant theme of our conversation was the meaning of freedom. Martin has a dis

On Bruno Latour with Joost van Loon

Apr 27th, 2023 1h 10m

On this episode I talk to Prof. Joost van Loon about French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour. We talked about a lot! Joost taught me about Latour’s actor network theory and while we were doing that we ended up chatting about the importa

On Alexandre Kojève with Hager Weslati

Apr 2nd, 2023 1h 13m

On this podcast I talk to Dr Hager Weslati about the philosopher Alexandre Kojève. Kojève is a hugely influential but not very well-known philosophers. Here Hager and I talk about his life, his philosophy, and his famous lectures on Hegel. Kojè

On the Truth of Snuff with Mark McKenna

Apr 2nd, 2023 1h 5m

A podcast with my colleague Dr Mark McKenna who is an Associate Professor at Staffordshire University. We talked about horror films. Specifically, we talked about the the snuff movie as a form of horror. We also talked about the cultural mythol

On the Embrace of Capital with Don Milligan

Oct 13th, 2022 1h 7m

Don Milligan is back to discuss his new book The Embrace of Capital (Zero Books: 2022). In this , Don recounts and analyses his history of social and political activism interrogating the reasons he thinks working people have a love-hate relati

On Architecture with Graham Harman

Sep 9th, 2022 1h 2m

On this episode Professor Graham Harman returns to talk about architecture and philosophy. We had a fascinating conversation discussing architecture in relation to the history of philosophy. Graham has tackled just this topic in new book Archit

On Nietzsche’s Socialism with Robert Miner

Sep 2nd, 2022 1h 9m

Friedrich Nietzsche is usually considered a staunch critic of socialism. My guest on this episode thinks this picture is a lot more complicated than we suspect. Professor Robert Miner suggests Nietzsche offers a very complex picture of what soc

On Simone Weil with Tiff Thomas

Aug 26th, 2022 1h

This episode I am talking to Dr Tiff Thomas. We discuss the philosophy, ideas and politics of activist, mystic, worker and educator Simone Weil. Tiff is a lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and specializes in Spinoza.

On Michel Serres with David Webb

Jul 2nd, 2022 56m 57s

On this podcast I am talking to my colleague Prof. David Webb a philosopher at Staffordshire University. David is the author of Heidegger, Ethics and the Practice of Ontology (Continuum: 2011) and Foucault's Archaeology: Science and Transformat

On the Formation of the Modern Self with Felix O’Murchadha

May 13th, 2022 59m 3s

On this episode of Thales’ Well I talk to Prof. Felix O’Murchadha who returns to talk about his new book The Formation of The Modern Self (Bloomsbury, 2022). Felix’s book provides a genealogy of the emergence of the self in the early modern per

On Propaganda with Colin Alexander

Jul 6th, 2021 1h 17m

This episode I had a fantastic discussion with Dr Colin Alexander about propaganda. We discussed the nature of propaganda, how to identify it, its ubiquity, as well as things we might do to mitigate the effect of propaganda on ourselves and soc

On David Lewis and Possible Worlds with Ben Curtis

Apr 21st, 2021 58m 35s

On this episode, I discuss analytic philosopher David Lewis' concept of possible worlds with Dr Benjamin Curtis. Ben is colleague at Nottingham Trent University. We talked about possible worlds, actual worlds, probability, causation and time.

On Camus and 'The Plague' with Robert Zaretsky

May 6th, 2020 57m 26s

I had an amazing conversation with Robert Zaretsky who is a Professor of Humanities at the Honors College, University of Houston. We spoke about French novelist and philosopher Albert Camus and his great pandemic novel The Plague. The Plague is

On Character with Christian Miller

Apr 24th, 2020 49m 7s

I am talking with Prof. Christian Miller about the nature of character. We discuss different types of character, character psycholgoy, forms of character virtue as well as forms of character vice, the difference between moral habits and instin

On Plato with Keith Crome

Apr 5th, 2020 1h 6m

This time we turn to Ancient Philosophy, and I discuss Plato with Dr Keith Crome. We speak about the pedagogical dimension of Plato's work, and focus specifically on Plato's Republic. Keith argues that to understand Plato, it is essential to un

On Blockchain with Peter Howson

Apr 4th, 2020 46m 45s

I am talking with Dr Peter Howson from Nottingham Trent University about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Peter is a Human Geographer, so we talk about the environmental impact of crypto-currency as well as it’s distribution in space. Largely,

On Online Learning with David Webster

Mar 22nd, 2020 51m 39s

This time I thought it would be useful to try to do something slightly different. Given that many teachers and lecturers have had on-line learning foisted about them due to the Covid-19 crisis, I thought it would be helpful to talk to an expert

On Difference and Repetition with David Deamer

Feb 21st, 2020 1h 6m

Dave is back! We speak again about French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. This time we try to crack one of his most famous works Difference and Repetition. We talked about some very abstract concepts such as space, time, motion, representation and

On Cormac McCarthy with Julius Greve

Feb 17th, 2020 48m 21s

I discuss American novelist Cormac McCarthy with literary scholar Dr Julius Greve. Cormac McCarthy is known for his often bleak and unwavering take on the Western. He has written over ten novels, as well as plays and screenplays in the Southern

On Nietzsche with Lars Iyer

Jan 14th, 2020 59m 34s

I had tremendous fun talking to philosopher and novelist Lars Iyer. We discussed Nietzsche in light of Lars' new novel Nietzsche and the Burbs. We discussed many of Nietzsche's famous concepts such as übermensh, amor fati and suffering, affirma

On Religion and Violence with Felix O'Murchadha

Jan 3rd, 2020 1h 6m

This month I spoke to Prof. Felix O’Murchadha of the National University of Ireland at Galway about religion and violence. We discussed the nature of religious experience, and more specifically the relation between violation, witnessing and per

On Social Work with Joe Smeeton

Nov 29th, 2019 55m 3s

This month I am talking to Joe Smeeton. We had a brilliant chat about the nature of social work, anxiety, risk, child protection, the political backdrop to social working in the UK, and just what it is like to be a social worker. Joe provided a